What if Brexit is too successful?

Brexit is embarrassingly successful so far.

Since the vote, Britain’s stockmarkets have surged. Its politics is unifying for the coming election, according to polls. And now new figures are in on the all-important foreign direct investment (FDI).

FDI measures real physical investments made by foreign companies into Britain. Not just the financial side. It means jobs, productivity growth and often trade for British people. So what did the numbers tell us?

British FDI surged in 2016 according to the OECD. We haven’t hit the heights seen before the financial crisis of 2008, but those were the days of the bubble. 

These days we’re leaving the EU, which is supposed to be a disaster. But the UK accounted for the bulk of the FDI increase for the EU and we’re second only to the US.

A few major deals represented much of the increase, but even without them we did well. AB InBev bought SABMiller, Shell bought BG Group, and Softbank bought ARM Holdings. The deals went ahead despite Brexit. And the big deals are set to continue with Google and Amazon expanding here.

This is an enormous vote of confidence in Britain from people willing to put their money where their mouth is. Our economic future is boosted.

The political implications of these results are more difficult to figure out. It’s hard to untangle whether the bumper FDI means Brexit is a good move, or whether companies just don’t care about it. But either way, it shows another prediction of Brexit doom is evaporating.

This begs the question, what if Brexit is too successful?

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